*** Ice-Cream Kisses ***

Jayden and I sat down on the plastic pink seats outside Wendy's and ate our ice-creams. Tate had taken my baby brother, Liam, over to the playground with our parents, leaving only Jayden and I to finish off our ice-creams.

"Lana"

"Yeh?" I replied, in between mouthfuls of mega-choc-shake

"You've got chocolate on your nose"

I blushed slightly and attempted to wipe the ice-cream off with a napkin

"You're just jealous 'cos you can't pull this look off"

I stroked my chin, pouted, flicked my blonde hair over my shoulder and looked into the distance over-dramatically, causing Jayden to burst into fits of laughter, sending sherbet-covered-soft-serve all over the silver table

"What? 'The Retard Look'? That'll have the likes of James Cooper begging running for you"

I almost choked on my ice-cream

"You did not just use the J word"

"You know you love him"

I giggled and flicked a piece of flake at him, landing in his deep-black hair . Jayden's family was really close with mine and I was best friends with his sister, Tate. So we were practically raised together.

"I, Alana Goldsworthy" Jay announced, in a game-show-host type voice "Am madly in love with James Cooper"

"Well I, Jayden Ash" I repeated in a mocking tone of his game-show-host voice "Am gay for Adam Right"

James Cooper and Adam Right were both socially inept boys in either mine or Jayden's classes, both were annoying, ugly and either a bit screwed-in-the-head or had extremely poor personal hygiene skills

"I, Alana Goldsworthy, have a life-size poster of James Ainsworth on my wall"

"I, Jayden Ash, have a cardboard cut-out of Leslie Smith that I kiss before bed every night"

"I, Alana Goldsworthy, have a secret shrine to James Phillips in my closet"

"I, Jayden Ash, write secret love sonnets to Justin Tileman and hide them under my pillow"

"I, Alana Goldsworthy, have a secret crush on Jayden Ash"

I blushed

"Jay? Really? Shrine to James, why not? But a crush on you? There's a line"

He scoffed and stirred his, now half-melted, ice cream

"Sure, sure. Plus, that's a shame 'cos I was gonna ask you out"

My breath hitched in my throat for a moment and was sure I must've been hallucinating.

"Excuse me?"

His baby-blue eyes bored into my hazel ones and I almost felt like fainting on the spot

"Will you, Alana Goldsworthy, go out with me, Jayden Ash?"

So there, on plastic pink seats outside of Wendy's, I kissed him.

And my forgotten mega-choc-shake melted in the background